Spalding's guide is remarkably on target in its critique of team owners who thought they could buy a championship. On a day when the Yankees were clobbered in their 2009 home opener, I read this little piece of advice from Spalding's guide from 1889:
.....success in championship contests is due far more to able management, competent captaining, and thorough team work,than to the gathering together of the strongest of star players ... [A] special lesson of the past campaign [is] that star players do not make a winning team. The fact is, the pennant cannot be won by any costly outlay in securing the services of this, that, or the other "greatest player in the country." It is well managed and harmonious teams, not picked nines led by special stars, which win in the long run. Now and then--as there are exceptions in all cases--a picked nine will attain a certain degree of success. But for steady struggles for permanent success in the professional championship arena, team work of the very best, and admirably managed teams will alone achieve steady victory.